In the last article, we did a deep dive on what the term “strength” really means in relation to structure in engineering. We explored how different scenarios can significantly impact the approach to structure design, before drawing parallels to the human body and muscle function. Finally, we looked at the differences between modern and traditional training methods.
However, we stopped just shy of going into any detail about how we might create and maintain structure whilst in motion and or against resistance.
This article aims to shed light on the vital role of muscle recruitment patterns in power generation before exploring some of the common nomenclature and cues used in traditional Vs modern strength and conditioning.
Moving and Bearing Load ?
As tumultuous as weather conditions can be, and as bad as road conditions are. It's one thing to design a fixed structure capable of reacting to varying load, but it's another thing to both create and react to a load, simultaneously.
As spoken about at length in the last article, at the heart of structural integrity is using load distribution to avoid stress concentrations that can lead to structural failure. In the ideal scenario we want to quickly and efficiently distribute load throughout a structure, whilst maintaining a capacity for reactivity during dynamic loading. We found that this can be achieved passively using a combination of rigid and soft structures. Like when using beams and networks of cables as seen in suspension bridges and the body's bone / fascia / tendons. Or it could be achieved actively with adaptive systems like air suspension in buses and trains, akin to the body's myotatic reflex.
The passive systems worked by increasing the elasticity of a structure, allowing for greater adaptation to load without failure. Whilst the active systems used a constant feedback loop to make automatic adjustments to varying load on the fly. Both of which could be improved biomechanically by relaxing and “sitting” into your structures. But how might we go about achieving the same aims, when attempting to move against* load, rather than just adapting to it ?
Take a bicep curl for example. When lifting, although some load will be distributed throughout the upper body and legs, intuition tells us that a lot of that load will likely be isolated in the bicep. Creating a problematic stress concentration in our structure. In a more dynamic scenario, if that load increased dramatically during activation, it would trigger autogenic inhibition and a failure cascade to protect the muscle from damage. A bit like when you sprain your ankle, and the body reacts by turning off preceding muscles in the kinematic chain, preventing the transmission of force to the ankle. Resulting in what my friends would call “folding like a leaf”.
We can somewhat circumvent this issue using momentum transfer, as discussed in a previous article about the use of weaponry. But it still doesn't quite hit at the heart of the problem. What about during slower or more complex applications of force, where momentum transfer becomes difficult to apply. Think about grappling for example, where there's a need to not only support and adapt to load, but also control and apply force in ways that make the likelihood of isolated tension much higher.
Surely it's impossible to avoid using isolated muscle activation ? Well, sort of, but to properly understand how we might mitigate the issue, we first need to understand muscle recruitment patterns and the role they play in movement.
Muscle Recruitment
Muscle recruitment can work in a variety of ways and getting that recruitment right, can be the difference between chronic injuries, and top tier performance.
There is of course isolated recruitment, where we intentionally limit activation to a single muscle, either for some form of treatment, testing or muscle building. Then there are compound movements which involve the complex orchestration of various muscles working together.
Passive / Adaptive - These are muscle activation patterns wholly managed subconsciously via mechanisms like the myotatic reflex, anticipation and ideomotor reflexes. I.e posture changes or playing instruments.
Momentum Assisted - Then there are those in which orchestration is assisted by momentum triggering the myotatic reflex, also related to the Short Stretch Cycle (SSC) in conventional training. A typical example would be Olympic javelin. The arm is outstretched and the body is sped up before rapidly decelerating, in order to create a transfer of momentum to the javelin. This transfer induces sequential stretching throughout the body and arm, triggering myotatic reflexes that enhance coordination and efficiency of the throw.
Voluntary - Voluntary compound movements rely more heavily upon conscious activation of specific muscle groups. This is where “cueing” in training becomes really helpful. In exercises like squatting common cues are “lock your hips” and “drive from the heels” which can help to ensure the correct muscles are being recruited at the correct time* during the movement. Other prominent examples include “engage”, “squeeze” and “brace” which all put a focus on increasing the force of muscle contractions.
Governing the efficiency of these movements, is an order of priority and muscle balance. For example, during explosive movement, athletes will typically employ a proximal to distal sequencing strategy. Meaning muscles closer to the core act first, creating a well supported hub for the efficient transfer of force to and from the limbs.
As for muscle balance, in relation to movement patterns we tend to focus on balance of tension between prime movers and synergistic muscles, i.e. The bicep being the prime mover during the bicep curl, taking priority over supporting synergistic muscles like the smaller muscles of the rotator cuff. Striking the correct balance of tension between these groups, ensures that during the crucial initial loading phase, weaker muscles aren't inadvertently pushed to failure by bearing the brunt of the load. As load will travel through the path of least resistance, in this case being the tightest muscles first. We call this movement dysfunction “synergistic dominance”, which is a major contributing factor to injuries, chronic pain and of course those failure cascades we keep returning to.
A great article on muscle balance from https://www.cptprep.com/single-post/9-21-18
On the other side of this coin, is the equally important orchestration of muscle relaxation. During normal functioning of the body, this is an automatic response facilitated by a neuromuscular mechanism known as reciprocal inhibition. Whereby the activation of one muscle group, the prime mover / agonist, inhibits the activation of its opposing group, the antagonist. This prevents opposing pairs from resisting one another, creating well coordinated and smooth movement. But even this can be thrown off by muscle dysfunction, primarily being latent muscle tension. This is where tension persists as a result of; posture, muscle knots, subconscious protective measures following injury, or simply due to overuse. That stubborn tension causes sensory fibres to constantly fire off altered signals which interfere with other nerve signalling, disrupting our ability to create complementary activation/relaxation patterns.
So here's where things start to get interesting. See we normally tackle sequencing, muscle balance and latent tension issues via manual therapy, in combination with activation techniques. These methods work by first restoring muscles to their proper resting length tension relationships, before retraining activation patterns via targeted exercising. This is where cueing and specific set ups are used to isolate and “wake up” underactive muscles, before reintegrating them into regular movement with a bias towards using more tension in those muscles. Over time those targeted exercises help to form habits that promote the correct priority of tension during movement.
But what happens when the problem arises not from dysfunctional movement patterns or latent tension issues, but from what we would normally consider well within the parameters of “good” movement ? What if the problem sits somewhere between muscle activation itself, and how it interferes with load distribution ? What do I even mean by this ?
Well when we look at the scope of modern sport and physiotherapy, for the most part it involves loading against reaction forces from equipment or the ground that are predictable and proportional to force exerted by the athlete. Allowing athletes to optimise their structure and activation patterns fairly reliably under the guiding hand of classical Newtonian physics. Whether you're shovelling or lifting weights, provided you have a decent coach you can eventually adjust to the task at hand, knowing how much and how best to distribute tension about the body.
In grappling however, your opponent doesn't behave like an inanimate object when you push/pull on them, restricted to reaction forces determined by physics. Your opponent can react however they want, subjecting your structure and activation patterns to fundamentally different forces during that voluntary activation. This is why in traditional arts, learning how to create an “outward” force is often considered equally if not less important than learning how the body deals with the unavoidable subsequent “inward” loading forces on its structure.
See this isn't just an optimisation issue like it is with sequencing and weight lifting, neither is it a general structural issue that can be fixed through corrective exercise and learning how to relax into structure for better passive adaptability. No, this issue sits squarely in the realm of voluntary muscle activation and presents a novel but fundamental split in how we might begin to approach muscle recruitment.
Relax and Expand
Most sports, even those involving some physical contact, operate under predictable physical laws where the information for optimisation against load is somewhat baked into practising the movements themselves. Where cues can be used to nudge recruitment in the right direction, or innate reflexes and structure can be tuned for the expected loading range. But with traditional arts like grappling, horse riding and battlefield combat, humans have had to get even more creative in finding ways to deal with unexpected, non proportional loading.
To recap, during activation we need to avoid excessive tension to leave headroom for additional load, whilst also encouraging wider load distribution and passive adaptability. Put another way, we need to somehow inhibit tension in the prime movers, whilst uniformly tautening our structure to improve load distribution and by extension the response of our myotatic reflex. There are probably a number of different ways to achieve this, like specific exercises for gauging load or being more precise in the intensity of voluntary contraction. But one cue that is ubiquitous across various traditional disciplines is to “Relax and Expand”
I'm sure a bunch of you have heard this phrase and without much explanation immediately had a feel for the term. I, on the other hand, struggled with the phrase for a while. I was never quite sure if my interpretation accurately represented my various teachers’ intentions. As there was always a distinction made between just stretching and expanding*, but rarely was the distinction explained much beyond that. In all honesty, much like with all feelings that occur within the body, this is another one of those somewhat subjective areas of training that may take on different meanings depending on context. In Shastar Vidiya we actually have several different terms that refer to tension/stretching with subtle but practical differences, but that's a conversation for another day. What I will do however, is share with you my current understanding, which only really came into focus when I studied more advanced stretching techniques during my corrective exercise training course.
Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation
Needing to inhibit muscle tension in order to improve stretching ability, isn't something that's unique to traditional arts. In physical therapy, this is a fundamental need that rears its head alongside latent tension issues quite regularly. One of the most effective ways to tackle this is using a Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation, or PNF stretching for short. This is where a cycle of contracting before relaxing is used to hijack reciprocal and or autogenic inhibition to assist in achieving a deeper stretch. Martial arts aside, the benefits and various techniques of PNF stretching are fascinating on several levels of biomechanics. Studies have shown benefits across the board, from better range of motion, faster recovery times as well as increased strength and neuromuscular activity. In relation to traditional arts, what is interesting about PNF stretching is it gives you the most tactile understanding of what “relaxing and expanding” might feel like, which is biomechanically different from a typical stretch.
When we perform static stretching, we’re actually fighting against the myotatic reflex. As our muscles and the sensory fibres within them stretch, this triggers a simultaneous contraction of the muscle. To overcome the contraction you have to hold the position steady for 30-60 seconds, allowing that initial reflex to subside due to “stress relaxation”, as our sensory fibres adapt to this seemingly new base level of stress. PNF Stretching works in a different manner. There are several types but the one I'll focus on here is the use of agonist contraction for reciprocal inhibition.
Using this protocol you contract the opposing muscle group of the group you wish to stretch, then slowly relax it as the desired group elongates. (see picture below).
In this example we want to stretch the posterior chain of muscles from the shoulder to the wrist. We bring the left arm close to the end of its range of motion, then use the right arm to create resistance for the opposing muscle groups to contract against. This contraction inhibits latent tension in the desired muscle groups causing them to relax and elongate. As the right arm is removed and the contraction is released, the elongation of muscles results in an improved range of motion and the arm almost “floating” across the body. Then, to make up for any loss in sensitivity when the latent tension was released, signals are sent via gamma neurons to re-tauten sensory fibres. This resets stretch sensitivity, granting us a wider range of detection thanks to the new lower baseline.
This creates a very distinct tactile feeling where muscles stretch but without the expected resistance. Quite the opposite of what you might feel when performing a typical static stretch, at least before that 30- 60 second release mark. For me at least, this feeling of muscles lengthening without resistance, immediately conjures connotations that can only accurately be described as a combination of relaxation, mixed with an almost eerie “expansion” feeling. Matching up quite well with traditional cues and the biomechanical requirements we outlined in the beginning of this section.
Side note: If this sensation feels familiar, you might remember a game we played as kids called the floating arm trick, or the related invisible ball trick where a similar protocol is used. You push against a wall trying to raise the arm upwards for 30s, then move away and observe as your arm seems to “float” upwards. This is known as the Kohnstamm phenomenon for which exists a few different competing theories, but generally surrounding increased firing rates of sensory fibres, and how psychological effects like expectation play a role. What I want to draw attention to however is the universally experienced “lightness” of the arm following a contract - relax cycle, which if you’ve been paying attention, this should be bringing things into focus.
See, with surprisingly little practice this feeling can be triggered at will and extended across even longer kinematic chains, just like with any other stretching exercise. Giving us access to an augmented "expanding" version of our innate relax function. One that may allow us to improve structural and neuromuscular connectivity across multiple muscle groups, by suppressing latent/excessive tension in a tangible way. Resulting in faster, more acute and better controlled responses to changes in load.
Whether this connection is truly structural, sensory or even just psychological is uncertain (though I lean towards a little of all three), It should be no surprise that it has an effect of reducing apparent load. Just as good posture can reduce the apparent load when weightlifting, improving any aspect of underlying load management systems, would probably have a similar effect.
Which brings us back to the question at hand about limiting isolated tension in a muscle. While completely* eliminating these kinds of stress concentrations may be impossible. There are a great number of techniques especially within traditional martial arts that use “expansion” to reduce that isolation sensorily and structurally. In the art I study ‘Shastar Vidiya’, we learn to not just push or pull against load, but to “relax and expand” into it, leveraging our increased structural efficiency for its quick dispersal. We then focus on feeling how to actively play with load distribution by managing paths of expansion throughout the body. Especially helpful when learning more acute momentum transfer techniques or simply reducing load on specific muscle groups during more taxing positions.
So, although I may pull with my palm in a way that superficially looks like I'm relying on my bicep, what it feels like I'm doing is expanding the hand, along the arm and down through to my feet. This comes with an apparent drop in load on the bicep and the feeling of more connection and control of the loading path.
You can try a simple version of this at home by altering the PNF Stretch I showed you earlier with a light weight.
Before trying this exercise, hold the weight out in front of you and gauge its weight, then do so again but after performing the "expansion". Bear in mind we're not actually performing the full stretch part here, just focussing on achieving the feeling. Over stretching in any fashion immediately before exercise can actually reduce sensory activity and force production.
Place one hand beneath the palm pressing the entire arm downwards and hold for 10 seconds or so. Then relax the entire arm focussing on expanding from the shoulder, through the bicep into the hands. With a little practice you should notice that the weight seemed to have gotten slightly lighter.
You can progress this idea by adding more muscles into the exercise. Then trying to expand at will both during these exercises and whilst generally stretching. Starting with simple chains then slowly getting deeper and more specific. Just be sure to keep the weight you're using light and manageable, as there are physical limitations to load distribution. Too heavy and you risk increasing stress concentrations in the arm and shoulder.
TLDR
Summary
In summary, to overcome the challenges of managing load distribution during muscle activation against a resisting opponent. We learn to “expand” our structure, a technique which I believe improves our underlying structural and neuromuscular systems by removing unnecessary /unhelpful latent tension in the body. This technique goes beyond just relaxing and into actively inhibiting tension, suppressing stress concentrations and promoting more uniformity across our connective tissues. Allowing us to play a more active role in load distribution whilst also improving our myotatic reflex for subconscious adaptation.
Having understood what expanding may feel like and how it potentially works, hopefully you can see how it might fit into your own training. Whether it's improving your dexterity in weapon wielding by reducing tension in the hands, or making your grappling techniques more potent.
Bonus Content
I had originally planned to end the article there, but as luck would have it, I got the chance to learn some traditional horse riding with a friend of mine where the cue “Relax and Expand” came up once again ! The experience tied together a bunch of threads from previous articles and was too good not to share. So here's a short bonus article on the experience.
Until diving deep into the historic aspects of martial arts, though I was aware of concepts like connecting the body and the use of expansion, practically speaking I always felt it really wasn’t that important for the majority of combat. In most scenarios, timing, positioning, and general technique, will still carry you a long way in terms of success. It was only when I got to spar more experienced traditional grapplers and feel the effects of someone skilled in internal arts did I really notice the difference by contrast.
In horse riding however, the opposite was true. From the very beginning, there was a laser focus on the ability to “stack” your structure right down to your stirrups. Where any disconnect from your feet dramatically impacted your ability to feel, and synchronise with the horses movement. That’s without mentioning the difficulty in actually achieving that synchronicity, where any forceful tension amplified the loss of control.
So after learning how to get on and off, start and stop the horse from moving, we spent a lot of time learning what my instructor called a “stillness” of mind. The ability to be both completely relaxed, yet constantly adapting to the horse's movement automatically. The trick was to “relax” and “sit” into the stirrups and saddle, both sensory wise and in relation to loading. Then to “expand” into an upright sitting position (as you’ll see in the video below).
Visually, the difference was probably fairly subtle, but internally it couldn't have felt more dissimilar. See, despite being aware of these techniques in combat, before we went through the process I tried my best to just mimic my instructor’s posture. With my back held straight and bracing my core. Yet, every shunt, shift and bounce of the horse’s body seemed to push my hips, legs and upper body completely out of sync. It was tiring just trying to keep my body upright. But after the “relaxing and expanding” exercise and realising the parallels in martial arts, it was pretty much exactly as my instructor described. With my structure connected and my body relaxed, adjustments happened so far below my level of consciousness that I could've easily fallen asleep in the saddle (despite how it looks, you just have to trust me that this was super comfy), which really put the “stillness” he spoke about into context. Once we added the expansion of the spine, it was no longer a case of supporting my spine and was more like my spine being directly connected to the horse’s. As information had gone from an incoherent, turbulent stream of disconnect and over corrections, to an almost laminar flow of information, drastically reducing the mental load. Allowing me to become far more aware of the horse's centre of mass and feet with each step.
After we got through the basics, I got to try my hand at cantering, posted trotting and some rapid stops and direction changes, all without the reins. We also talked alot about the pedagogy itself and its importance to mounted combat and working with cattle. Where the need for subtlety and good mechanics has far less to do with perfectionism or display of skill, and more to do with the dangers and pressures of riding at speed using weapons/ropes. Being able to ride fast was far less important than being able to ride efficiently for control and agility, both mentally and physically.
All in all, there were numerous parallels in this approach to training and actual mechanics that we share in Shastar Vidiya. Considering the importance of horsemanship to ancient warriors, I can definitely see how heavily it’s influenced pedagogy and how it may have shifted priorities in movement. But i’ll leave that conversation for another day 😉
Hopefully this has given greater insight into expansion, and how it may play a part in your own training.
Next article
Dancing With Gravity
The next article on mechanics will be my most ambitious yet, looking at the weird and wonderful mechanics of locomotion itself, tying structure to the mechanics of balance in movement.